Dressing Outside

August 30th, 2019
kids
This is not a good pattern:
Parent: before we go outside you need to put your coat on
Child: no
Parent: it's a cold day, and if you go out without your coat you'll be sad
Child: no
...
As a parent, there are a lot of cases where you have a better idea about what your child is going to want than they do, and these cases are hard. You know your kid isn't going to enjoy the cold weather, but they may have all sorts of reasons they don't want to put a coat on.

The traditional solution here is just to tell them they have to put their coat on before leaving, and over time they get in the habit and it feels normal to them. This is more or less fine, but it both requires forcing them to do something and doesn't really teach them the skill of predicting what clothing they're going to want.

What I like a lot better is just saying "ok", and sticking their coat in my backpack. Once we get outside they'll typically ask for their coat and put it on. If they don't, that's fine with me too: sounds like I was wrong about whether they would want it.

While we can't always put off decisions until they're ones the kids are going to be in a good position to make on their own, it's more common than you might think.

Comment via: facebook

Recent posts on blogs I like:

A Big Problem With The Going To Bed Book

One day my dad was reading this book called the "Going to Bed Book" to my sister Nora. The book is basically about a bunch of animals who are getting ready for bed on a boat. They go down the stairs, take a bath, hang their towels on the wall, find…

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts September 18, 2023

Investing in boundaries with young kids

Putting in some work to get the behavior you want The post Investing in boundaries with young kids appeared first on Otherwise.

via Otherwise August 15, 2023

Self-driving car bets

This month I lost a bunch of bets. Back in early 2016 I bet at even odds that self-driving ride sharing would be available in 10 US cities by July 2023. Then I made similar bets a dozen times because everyone disagreed with me. The first deployment to pot…

via The sideways view July 29, 2023

more     (via openring)